Luke Thomas: "The UFC will be getting about 500k PPV buys guaranteed per event with the ESPN deal"

[Steve-French]

Good thing its not about what you want then. The UFC is more interested in being the WWE than the NBA. The other orgs treat the sport like a sport. Fighters see it, fans see it. The UFC got their monopoly and has been making heavy handed mistakes and succeeding in spite of them for years. Other orgs succeeding is what MMA needs.

It's called prize fighting. Don't act like other Orgs don't try and get away with this shit. Bellator puts on shit like Royce vs Shamrock and Kimbo vs DADA, Golden Boy just put on Chuck vs Tito III, and if it wasn't for pro wrestling Pride (or todays MMA for that matter) would have never even existed. The UFC has a few head scratchers here and there, but 95% of the time we are getting the best fighting the best.

 

[Only Here for Attachments]

- Fighters need to get legislation passed through congress and president Trump to sign it.

<45><45><45><45><45>

 

[AZ103]

It's called prize fighting. Don't act like other Orgs don't try and get away with this shit. Bellator puts on shit like Royce vs Shamrock and Kimbo vs DADA, Golden Boy just put on Chuck vs Tito III, and if it wasn't for pro wrestling Pride (or todays MMA for that matter) would have never even existed. The UFC has a few head scratchers here and there, but 95% of the time we are getting the best fighting the best.

A side show fight is one thing. Delegitamizing championship titles is a disgrace to sports and the fighters who put their health on the line to EARN them. The UFC gets further from legitimate sport every day. Seems your mind is made up. Youre wrong though.

 

[FrankieNYC]

In the long run they still need to have a good product and a high buyrate overall. Just going fuck it no need to make the biggest fights we're getting the equivalent revenue of 500k ppv regardless seems pretty short sighted.

Besides outside of a handful of fighters the fighters don't have any leverage anyway. It would be great for fighters to be paid a bigger portion of revenue but I think most fans would agree that it would better if the big draws had less leverage in matchmaking or anything outside of their fight pay for fights they actually deserve to be in.

@Frankie NYC what is your take?

Hey man
Your tag was wrong, I saw this by accident

First off the 500k is not a definite number.
The deal they made was ESPN+ guaranteeing UFC the money (not buys) they made as an average the past several years.
the amount of years is unknown as of now.

Meltzer was explaining how hard it would be for ESPN+ to make up the money if it was 6m buys a year.

That said ...
It was an insane deal by WME.
Now UFC is guaranteed profits that they were not sure of before.
They have a very valid shot at hitting $400m in profit this year.
best Lorenzo year was $152m

but a bigger point is, if they go public like many think, they will make more because they can show all the guaranteed money that guarantees huge profits until 2015

 

[IGotAHugePeckah]

Best course of action for MMA fighters: switch to boxing or go back to school.

Fighting MMA is not worth it.

 

[XYCromosone**]

I don't care about this

All I care about is seeing people fuck each other up in the octagon

So why are you in a thread about it? You didnt think this through right? Everyone on this thread cared to find out about what is going except you but you felt the need to express how much you didnt care about it? Youre a genius dude.

 

[XYCromosone**]

This deal with espn ends in 7 years. The ufc doesn’t want the sport to end in 7 years. With this in mind, they are going to have to do things(big fights) that ensure they clear the 500k pay per view buys many times throughout the contract for the sport to go where they’re wanting. This isn’t a lifetime contract with espn. There is still pressure for the ufc to perform, therefore, giving fighters leverage.

Use some common business sense...

Yeah, people are talking like fighters dont have leverage, um yeah they still do. Watch if their contracts are up and they dont get paid what they feel they deserve they will leave to other orgs. LOL at guys like Thomas thinking they lost leverage.

 

[XYCromosone**]

No, they won't dude. Do the math. The UFC is going to make more this year through guaranteed revenue than they did last year with the highest selling PPV of all time.

Sure, they'd like Conor to come back and headline, but they're not going to get leveraged by him. That's why Dana's response to his retirement tweet was "see ya."


Also, I don't know why you included Nate. The UFC has steadfastly refused to accommodate him despite his hiatus. They clearly don't think that they need him.

So you do know who will be getting screwed right? ESPN. If PPV numbers arent what they are paying for guarantee PPV then they will be the ones footing the bill. I am sure they will be pressuring the UFC to do something about it.

 

[clutchCAT420]

They wont get a penny out of me. They still havnt found and never will find a way to beat the internet. Internet is undefeated
Web streams> disney wme ufc

 

[XYCromosone**]

You didn't pay attention to the clip. This money is guaranteed. The deal is locked in for seven years.

Sure, the UFC has to perform over the long run if they want to maintain their relationship and re-up in 2026, but in the short term, they have enough guaranteed revenue to tell anybody who wants more leverage to pound sand.

They don't need Conor to fight this year. He can pretend to be retired, but he's not going to get accommodated like he did the last time that he pulled this stunt in 2016.

They still need conor. Conor was bringing in 3-20 times as much PPV buys as most of the UFC champs. 3 times as much as the next closes fighter in Jones and 20 times as much as Nunes. Also Someone is footing that Guaranteed money and it is ESPN. If the PPV numbers dont add up to what they were thinking it would than it is ESPN who will be getting screwed in this deal. You make it seem like the UFC can put up a shitty product and ESPN wouldnt give a damn and everything would be okay because it's a guaranteed contract. Things dont work like that.

 

[d2s]

Didn't he serve in the Marines?

So? Does that mean he's exempt from ridicule when he acts like a teenager?

 

[Isthat-yo bop]

I remember Liz carmouch fought Ronda for 10k/10k . She fought for free that night . so the leverage never been in the fighters hand. They can’t even work together . When Conor retired, no fighter has come to back him . It’s a crab in the bucket syndrome . A lot of these dudes gone end up like chuck liddel

 

[PabloMEX]

This should give the UFC plenty of time to figure out a way to survive after the espn deal is over.

 

[Hamim]

There’s most likely going to be a ppv bundle service espn is gonna roll out in the near future.

 

[Phisher]

They still need conor. Conor was bringing in 3-20 times as much PPV buys as most of the UFC champs. 3 times as much as the next closes fighter in Jones and 20 times as much as Nunes. Also Someone is footing that Guaranteed money and it is ESPN. If the PPV numbers dont add up to what they were thinking it would than it is ESPN who will be getting screwed in this deal. You make it seem like the UFC can put up a shitty product and ESPN wouldnt give a damn and everything would be okay because it's a guaranteed contract. Things dont work like that.

My point wasn't that they can not produce numbers and re-up the deal. It was that it eliminates Conor's short-term leverage.

Obviously, ESPN was expecting McGregor to be part of the UFC brand, and obviously, they're not going to be happy about the UFC turning low numbers.

The issue here is that Conor's retirement, if it's a leverage stunt like he pulled in 2016, won't work this time. The UFC was forced to back down and put Conor in the main event at UFC 202 after they removed him from UFC 200. They needed him to fight multiple times in 2016 to generate enough revenue to service the debt of the UFC sale. That's not an issue now.

If this is negotiating ploy on Conor's part, the stalemate might last a couple of years.

To be clear, unless he goes to prison, I'm certain that he's going to fight again eventually. I just don't think that he's going to be able to keep forcing renegotiations of his terms between every fight like he's been doing.